LANSING – In what environmentalists view as a threat to efforts by Michigan and other Great Lake states to control the introduction of new invasive species to those waters, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a U.S. Coast Guard funding bill Tuesday that sets a lesser ballast water standard than Michigan and other states now allow.

The bill, H.R. 2838, also would allow the S.S. Badger, the car ferry that runs from Ludington to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to continue its controversial practice of dumping coal ash in Lake Michigan. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had allowed the vessel to continue the practice only until the end of 2012. And state officials have said the practice violates Michigan’s 1994 environmental protection law.

Officials with the Badger say the company needs additional time to convert its operating system to natural gas. But they also said they cannot afford the cost of converting until other ships show an interest in using the same propulsion system.

The U.S. House action also comes shortly before the EPA is scheduled to issue a new draft Vessel General Permit rule that would set criteria for how ships operate in the Great Lakes. State officials were also worried about that rule both for the ballast water provisions and what it might say about the Badger.

A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Zeeland) said it was unclear how the U.S. Senate would react to the bill.

Congressional Democrats have opposed the bill – which was originally intended to finance operations for the U.S. Coast Guard – because a number of environmental provisions were added to it.

And Michigan’s entire U.S. House delegation opposed an amendment that would require that ballast water restrictions be no more stringent than those set by the International Maritime Organization.

On Tuesday the bill passed on a voice vote in the U.S. House.

Interviewed several weeks ago, Office of the Great Lakes Director Patricia Birkholz said since Michigan imposed ballast water restrictions on international freighters in the Great Lakes, no new invasive species have been introduced into the lakes. Already, biologists have counted 180 such species, and most have come in through international freighters since the opening of the Welland Canal that allows ships to go around the Niagara Falls.

Michigan was the first of the Great Lakes states to introduce ballast water standards, and almost all the states have issued their own laws or rules regarding ballast water.

Critics have charged the industry should not be forced to keep tabs on differing standards for ballast water. But, quoting an assistant, Ms. Birkholz said the International Maritime Organization standard is a “political standard,” not a scientific standard.

Before the U.S. House acted, most environmentalists were worried about what standard the EPA might propose in its new draft vessel general permit. The draft rule is expected by the end of November or in early December and is expected to take at least a year with hearings and public comments before it becomes official.

If the U.S. Senate blocks the environmental standards in the Coast Guard bill, then the EPA rule may become the governing rule on ballast water.

The current vessel general permit has allowed the S.S. Badger to dump coal ash in Lake Michigan through the end of 2012.

State officials have indicated the EPA is leaning toward not extending that provision, and Badger executives have not developed a new way of either propelling the ferry or containing the ash so it is not dumped in the lake.

The ferry has drawn increasing public scrutiny for the practice, with a number of articles in the Chicago Tribune and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

But Huizenga, who sponsored an amendment to H.R. 2838 along with U.S. Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Crystal Falls) and U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wisconsin), sees continued operations of the ferry as critical to the economy of Ludington, said his spokesperson, Lauren Phillips.

The amendment, which would allow a vessel with a historic designation (such a designation for the Badger is pending before the U.S. Secretary of the Interior) to continue operating on the same basis it has been under the November 2011 vessel general permit.

Phillips said the amendment was not intended to give the Badger a free pass, but to give it time to develop a new propulsion system.

Lynda Matson, a spokesperson for the Badger, said the ship’s company intends to operate by natural gas eventually. “We want to be the greenest ship on the Great Lakes,” she said.

But with no other vessels or companies in the Ludington area looking to convert to gas operations, the Badger cannot by itself at this time finance the cost of building the infrastructure needed for natural gas operations, she said.

Sources within the Michigan Economic Development Corporation said economic development officials in Mason County have contacted the MEDC to discuss ways of helping the Badger. Officials with different economic development agencies in the county could not be reached for confirmation of that, and Matson said she was not made aware of any conversations with the MEDC.

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